Desperate times call for … a mother who can invent.
We’ve been in a drought for a while, and it’s getting pretty … grim. Seemed the only way we could get any rain at all when there was any in the area was for me to go outside and hurl insults up at the sky, to whit: “Come on Thor, you useless Viking git! Come at me, bro! Get off your worthless fanny and do your goddam job!” … and then go for a walk. Oh, we got drenched a couple times.
But then … it just stopped working. I said to Michael, “We’re gonna have to fire Thor and find a new rain god.”
But then it occurred to me that Thor was never rain god in these parts. We don’t know who the rain god is around here. Nobody has ever even bothered to seek him out, at least not that I know of, so … maybe I’m hurling insults at the wrong god.
Okay then. Time for a shamanic journey to seek out the local rain god.
Cue drumming, misty fade to a terrifyingly beautiful mountainous world where lightning crowns the purple-clouded sky and the wind doesn’t know the meaning of the word mercy.
My animal companion, Deer, flies me to this world, which for all it’s fierce and scary attributes is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. We fly to the highest mountain top, and I dismount, patting Deer’s neck and asking him to be ready to fly if things don’t go well.
There’s a ring of stones, stark and forbidding, and I softly step in, asking to meet with the rain god. A great flash of lightning and a roar of thunder announce his arrival.
He’s a mountain himself, probably 9-10 feet tall, with curly black hair shot through with white lightning. His eyes are the color of the sky before a storm, and his skin is as brown as the bark of an oak. He’s dressed in storm colors, aurora-like, snug-fitting to his body. He’s pure muscle, strength embodied, and there is no softness about him. His voice thunders at me: “What business do you have with me?”
I remember that I have lungs, and take a breath. “I live here, I was hoping we could be friends.”
“Tell me why I should be friends with you.” It wasn’t a request.
Inspiration like lightning hits my brain. “I’m a songmaker. I want to tell your stories with music, and teach people about you.”
“Hmmm.” The thunder softens to a rumble, and he looks thoughtful. “What kind of songs would you write about me?”
Get this right, Alma, you can do this. “Well, storms are … exciting, dynamic. There’s power, but there’s also nurturing. You bring life-giving rain, but sometimes you shake the sky. You restore the fields and the forests, but sometimes you take something back – but that’s because you have to hold sacred the essential balance of things. Rain-father, sky-shaker, life-bringer, that sort of thing.”
The thunderous eyes soften and a smile creases his face.
“Alright, little songmaker. We can be friends.”
I offer him my flask, and he gladly accepts, and after he’s had a drink he hands it back to me and nods with appreciation. “Good highland whisky. I approve.”
I take a drink to seal our friendship, and say, “Slainte!” I close the lid but don’t put the flask back in my pack just yet. “Can you tell me, please, what I should call you?”
He thinks a hot minute and smiles and says, “What did you call me a moment ago? Rainfather! I like that, that has a nice ring to it.”
“Rainfather it is!” I say, and hand him the flask again. He drinks with a sparkle in his eye.
“And how do I call you, when we need rain?” I ask.
He was thoughtful again, not having had to think about this for a long time. “Let me see now, put a little whisky in a glass outside where it can be rained on, and light a candle that I can see it through a window.”
I nodded. “I can do that.”
“A decent bottle of whisky, none of the cheap stuff. And I am the only one who drinks from that bottle.”
“Of course! Absolutely. And after the storm?”
“Pour the whisky and rainwater out on the ground, of course.”
“Got it,” I reply.
“So when do I get my song?”
“As soon as inspiration strikes!”